Chapter 15 · Wrong Keys

"Designated container, four-Echo," the loudspeaker said, flat and metal-voiced, bouncing off the bio-lock walls. "Status: condemned. Purge cycle in nine minutes."

Neither of us moved for the door.

Milo still had his hand at my throat, right over the bite, right over the place his teeth had opened me up ten seconds before that voice cut through the vents. His palm was slick with my blood and his own sweat and he didn't take it away. He just looked at the speaker grille like it had personally insulted him.

"Nine minutes," he said. "For a purge that fills this box with foam and cooks anything alive in it."

"I know what a purge does, Drake."

"Then move."

"No."

He turned his head at that, slow, and I felt his stubble drag my jaw, felt the heat still rolling off him like he hadn't cooled down from marking me. My legs weren't steady. My gland throbbed under his palm, raw and lit up, and every nerve in my neck wanted him to press harder instead of pull back. Bone against bone where his forearm crossed mine —